Outgoing FSM President Panuelo warns FSM leaders of Chinese Political Warfare in the FSM Proposes switching diplomatic ties to Taiwan

By Bill Jaynes The Kaselehlie Press

March 10, 2023

FSM—On the day after the election that made it clear that FSM’s President David W. Panuelo would not be serving another term, he sent an explosive 6500-word letter to FSM National and State leaders urging them to be aware that the People’s Republic of China is engaging in Political Warfare in the FSM—warfare that threatens the FSM’s very sovereignty.

The letter was intended to be a private communication to each of the FSM’s State Governors, and the speakers of FSM legislature including Wesley Simina, Speaker of the FSM Congress who may become the next President of the FSM. The letter went directly to the intended recipients and specifically not through any of their staff members, but by mid-morning today the letter had leaked and a foreign journalist posted the entire letter online. Given the list of recipients and the way in which the letter was sent, one of the elected leaders must have leaked the article to the press for unknown but potentially guessable reasons.

It is not the first time that the President has given warnings about China’s activities in the Pacific Island Countries (PICs). Last year, another leaked letter to the leaders of all of the PICs from President Panuelo warned about the possible ramifications of China’s proposed Common Development Vision. At that time, he warned that China wanted, through a vaguely worded and supposedly non-legally binding agreement, to possess ownership of the region’s ocean resources. He said that China wanted to create a “for its own uses such as for deepsea mining; control of our fiber optic cables and other telecommunications infrastructure, which would allow them to read our emails and listen to our phone calls; to possess ownership of our immigration and border control processes, for the use of biodata collection and observation; and to create sweeping security agreements with our country and our region.”

Accuses China of bribery to keep FSM aligned prior to a planned invasion of Taiwan

The President, without naming names, said that China has engaged in the bribery of FSM leaders in an effort to ensure that the FSM continues its diplomatic relations with China as the country ramps up its military for a predicted invasion of Taiwan by 2027. “… the FSM has a key role to play in either the prevention of such a conflict, or participation in allowing it to occur,” the President wrote. “It is on this basis that Political Warfare and Grey Zone activity occur within our borders; China is seeking to ensure that, in the event of a war in our Blue Pacific Continent between themselves and Taiwan, that the FSM is, at best, aligned with the PRC (China) instead of the United States, and, at worst, that the FSM chooses to “abstain” altogether.

“If an invasion of Taiwan seems unlikely, did we not feel the same about the invasion of Ukraine?-and in this case, we know about PRC’s whitepaper to be ready to invade by 2027,” he added parenthetically.

China eyes on Guam?

He said that he initiated a total moratorium on PRC research vessel activity in the FSM’s EEZ after the FSM learned that the vessels were not only mapping for resources but for submarine travel paths. “We are aware of PRC activity in our Exclusive Economic Zone whose purpose includes communicating with other PRC assets so as to help ensure that, in the event a missile-or group of missiles-ever needed to land a strike on the U.S. Territory of Guam, that they would be successful in doing so. When we sent our own patrol boats to our own Exclusive Economic Zone to check on PRC research vessel activity, the PRC sent a warning for us to stay away.”

FSM rejects China’s Ambassador designate

The President said that he has rejected China’s Ambassador designate, Mr. WU Wei. While Mr. Wu’s submitted curriculum vitae did include the fact that he is the Deputy Director General for China’s External

Security Affairs, it did not include details about what his previous responsibilities had been. The FSM learned that in that capacity, Mr. Wu’s work experience related to the use of clandestine PRC police offices—secret police—seen in countries such as Canada and Australia. “We understand that Mr. Wu would, upon his arrival, be given the mission of preparing the FSM to shift away from its partnerships with traditional allies such as the U.S., Japan, and Australia,” the President said. “…As of the time of this letter, the PRC has not responded-formally or informallyto that rejection, though they have spoken with some of our senior officials and elected leaders to note that they’re simply awaiting the new President to take power so Mr. Wu can become the Ambassador of China to the FSM.”

Says bribery is China’s method of success with agenda in FSM

“One of the reasons that China’s Political Warfare is successful in so many arenas is that we are bribed to be complicit, and bribed to be silent. That’s a heavy word, but it is an accurate description regardless,” President Panuelo wrote. “What else do you call it when an elected official is given an envelope filled with money after a meal at the PRC Embassy or after an inauguration? What else do you call it when a senior official is discretely given a smartphone after visiting Beijing? What else do you call it when a senior official explicitly asks Chinese diplomats for televisions and other ‘gifts’? What else do you call it when an elected official receives a container filled with plants and other items? What else do you call it when an elected official receives a check for a public project that our National Treasury has no record of and no means of accounting for?”

President Panuelo said that he would “refuse to name names, but it is not out of courtesy; it is to keep the emphasis on the problem, instead of naming or shaming any particular person or group of people. Senior officials and elected officials across the whole of our National and State Governments receive offers of gifts as a means to curry favor. The practical impact of this is that some senior officials and elected officials take actions that are contrary to the FSM’s national interest, but are consistent with the PRC’s national interest.”

“I want to be clear that I am professing to youthose who will succeed my administration, and likely continue to remain in political power at the National or State level-that if your administration is like mine, you will have Cabinet who record bilateral meetings and transmit those recordings to China,” the President said. “You will have Cabinet and/or senior officials tell the Chinese Ambassador ‘I will help you if you help me’ behind your back. You will have Cabinet accept gifts, such as envelopes filled with money, and alcohol. You will have Cabinet attend meetings with foreign officialssometimes officials from countries the FSM doesn’t recognize, or doesn’t recognize yet

without your knowledge. It isn’t going to be just one of them, and what one will tell you in public versus what they will tell you in private-or behind your back-may prove to be very different things. It is here that I wish to emphasize that not all of the political appointees I have been recently removing from office have engaged in these activities.”

Not all elected FSM officials took little red envelopes

Bribery is a difficult crime to prove definitively unless one witnesses the actual bribery taking place. As one example, the President said that shortly after being elected as a Senator in the FSM Congress, then Senator, now FSM Vice President Aren Palik, was invited to a dinner at the Chinese Embassy. Then PRC Ambassador Huang asked Palik if he would sit up front with other Senators, and ALSO to accept an envelope filled with money. Palik refused, telling the Ambassador to never offer him a bribe again, and later reported Ambassador Huang as telling him that he could be President someday as the rationale for the “special treatment”.

In October of last year, Palik visited Kosrae and was received by representatives of Da Yang Seafood. The company has a private plane in which they and several senior government officials arrived. The representatives told the Vice President that they can provide him private and personal transportation to anywhere he likes at any time, even Hawaii. All he had to do was ask.

“So, what does it really look like when so (many) of our government’s senior officials and elected officials choose to advance their own personal interests in lieu of the national interest?... At worst in the shortterm, it means we sell our country and our sovereignty for temporary personal benefit. At worst in the long-term, it means we are, ourselves, active participants in allowing a possible war to occur in our region, and very likely our own islands and our neighbors on Guam and Hawaii, where we ourselves will be indirectly responsible for the Micronesian lives lost. After all, this isn’t about the United States or Japan or Australia or any

other country-but it must be about our own Micronesian citizens, and the fact that Guam by itself, and Hawaii by itself, each have Micronesian populations larger than Yap and Kosrae combined and, together, have a Micronesian population larger than Pohnpei. In other words: this is about upholding our duty to our FSM Constitution, to which we swear allegiance to, including our duty to protect the security and sovereignty of our own country and our own people.”

FSM high level meeting with Taiwan

On top of the many other bombshells President Panuelo dropped in his letter, he told the FSM leaders that last month he had met with Joseph Wu, Foreign Minister of Taiwan, to discuss what their potential assistance to the FSM might be were the FSM to switch its diplomatic relations to supporting Taiwan instead of China. He also explored the idea of maintaining relations with China, initializing a Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office.

Minister Wu told the President that Taiwan would inject $50 million into the FSM’s Trust Fund over a three-year period, accompanied by an annual $15 million assistance package to be used and divided as the FSM sees fit. Additionally, Minister Wu told the President that Taiwan would finish any and all projects that China is currently working on, such as the National Convention Center in Palikir, the Kosrae State Government Complex, and the complete re-working of Pohnpei State Government Complex, which was falling apart within months of its opening. “All of this assistance, of course, would be on top of the greatly added layers of security and protection that come with our country distancing itself from the PRC, which has demonstrated a keen capability to undermine our sovereignty, rejects our values, and uses our elected and senior officials for their own purposes,” President Panuelo wrote.

China was not at all happy with the President’s missive. The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to the FSM released a tersely worded statement regarding what it called an “individual politician’s letter concerning China”, not mentioning that the mentioned politician is the current President of the FSM.

“We noted some media’s reports on the Federated States of Micronesia’s individual politician’s letter concerning China,” the statement says. “We are shocked by the news about the negative remarks concerning China in the letter which are a clear misrepresentation of facts and full of slanders against China-FSM friendship. We firmly oppose to any word or behaviour against the one-China principle unveiled in the letter. The Letter revealed that some FSM individual politician breaks the serious political commitments which he made to China for multiple times, makes official contact with Taiwan authorities and seeks official relation with Taiwan region, which seriously violates the one-China principle. China firmly rejects any official communications between the FSM and Taiwan region in any forms and firmly opposes any slanders against Chinese diplomatic and commercial activities.”

“…China urges relevant people in the FSM to stop sending any wrong signals to the ’Taiwan independence’ separatist forces and bring the bilateral relation back on the track of the one-China principle universally supported by the international community, and take concrete actions to defend the Great Friendship between our two countries.”

Motivation, despite personal safety concerns

“I love the Federated States of Micronesia, this nation, my nation, your nation, our nation, too much to not inform each of you about these important topics, and to warn you of the kinds of threats and opportunities that face us,” President Panuelo wrote in closing. “I am acutely aware that informing you all of this presents risks to my personal safety; the safety of my family; and the safety of the staff I rely on to support me in this work. I inform you regardless of these risks, because the sovereignty of our nation, the prosperity of our nation, and the peace and stability of our nation, are more important. Indeed, they are the solemn duty of literally each and every single one of us who took the oath of office to protect our Constitution and our country.”

At press time, President Panuelo had not responded to our email communication with him.